C.J. Holmes: Nets enter NBA draft lottery with No. 1 pick in play, franchise history on their shoulders

C.J. Holmes, New York Daily News on May 9, 2026

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NEW YORK — The biggest summer in recent Nets memory starts with ping-pong ball aerodynamics.

That’s the charm and cruelty of the NBA draft lottery. A season’s worth of losses, scouting, patience and organizational restraint gets handed over to bouncing balls in a machine. On Sunday afternoon in Chicago, the Nets will learn whether all of that leads them toward the kind of break that can change a franchise.

The 2026 NBA draft lottery will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, with ABC revealing the results live. Brooklyn enters with the NBA’s third-worst record and the same top odds as the teams ahead of it: a 14% chance at the No. 1 overall pick and a 52.11% chance of landing in the top four.

The hopeful number is 14%. The nerve-wracking one is 26.02%. That’s Brooklyn’s chance of landing the No. 6 pick, its most likely individual outcome. The Nets also have a 13.41% chance at No. 2, a 12.74% chance at No. 3, an 11.96% chance at No. 4, a 14.82% chance at No. 5 and a 7.05% chance at No. 7.

So, Sunday isn’t just about whether the Nets can land the No. 1 pick. It’s about whether this rebuild gets a potential face, a top-tier building block or another complicated turn.

A jump to No. 1 would put Brooklyn in position to draft a player who could become the centerpiece of the next era. A top-four pick would still leave the Nets in range of the highest-end prospects in a class that will feature names such as AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer and Caleb Wilson. A fall to No. 6 or No. 7 wouldn’t ruin anything, but it would demand more from the scouting department, more from the development staff and more patience from a fan base that has already been asked for plenty.

The Nets have pieces. They have young players. They have future picks. They have flexibility. What they still need is the player who makes the rest of the plan easier to see.

Brooklyn has had lottery nights go both ways, though the painful ones tend to stick longer. The Nets won the lottery in 1990 after finishing with the NBA’s worst record and selected Derrick Coleman. They jumped to No. 1 again in 2000 after finishing with the seventh-worst record and selected Kenyon Martin, the last player the franchise took first overall.

They’ve also learned how cold the lottery can be. In 2010, the Nets had the NBA’s worst record and a 25% chance at No. 1, only to fall to No. 3 and miss out on John Wall before selecting Derrick Favors. Last year, Brooklyn entered with the sixth-worst record and 9% odds at No. 1, then slid to No. 8 and selected Egor Dëmin.

For Nets fans, that history doesn’t live alone. It sits next to everything else. Drafting Kareem Abdul-Jabbar only for him to sign with the Milwaukee Bucks, giving up Julius Erving during the ABA-to-NBA transition, Dražen Petrović’s death, the Kobe Bryant draft fiasco, Deron Williams’ injuries, the Boston Celtics’ trade and the picks that became Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and the Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving era being undone by injuries, timing and a once-in-a-generation pandemic.

Even the recent scars have layers. Brooklyn’s 2025 pick fell to eighth. The 2024 pick it sent to Houston rose to third. That’s why Sunday carries more than probability.

The Nets are sending franchise history, ownership and a fan favorite to Chicago. Hall of Famer Vince Carter will represent the team on stage. Nets governor Joe Tsai will represent Brooklyn in the drawing room and will be the only majority team owner there. Bruce Reznick, better known as Mr. Whammy, was invited by Tsai and general manager Sean Marks to attend as a special guest of the organization.

It’s a fitting group for the moment. Carter represents what the Nets once were. Tsai represents what they’re trying to build. Mr. Whammy represents the part of the fan base still willing to believe that maybe, finally, luck can break Brooklyn’s way.

The Nets need more than nostalgia, though. They need the ping-pong balls to cooperate.

Call it an omen if you want. Zach Gonzales, who trained Dëmin during last year’s draft process, was photographed working out Dybantsa, the projected No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA draft, while wearing a Nets shirt.

The image doesn’t mean the basketball gods have already penciled Dybantsa into Brooklyn’s future.

It might not mean anything at all.

But before a lottery that could reshape the Nets’ rebuild, it says plenty about where everyone’s eyes already are.